Zeevah's Elite Doggie Swimming Pool / Water Bowl / Bird Bath

If your dog(s) like to swim in hot weather, this is the perfect combination swimming pool / water bowl for you! This is my father's project - we completed it between the two of us on Saturday in about half an hour.

Only my father would think of this....

For this instructable, you will need:

- A junk wheelbarrow (it's ok if the plastic is cracked as long as it's useable)- Thick plastic sheeting (.6 mil or better) - OR - a shower curtain -OR- waterproof tarp- A knife- A hand trowel- A shovel- Optional: Blocks of wood, stone, or something heavy to line the edges of the barrow with

Step 1: Remove Tub of Wheelbarrow From All Other Hardware

Remove all the brackets and hardware that is attached to the plastic tub of your wheelbarrow. We're only interested in the tub itself.

Step 2: Draw Line Around the Tub in the Dirt

Using the end of your shovel, trace a line in the dirt around your tub.

Step 3: Grab Your Shovel(s)!

Step 4: Dig Out Your Hole

You'll want to dig out the hole in a way that allows the tub to sit roughly at ground level on the lip.

Step 5: Spread Plastic Over the Hole

You can use a waterproof tarp, a thick mil sheet of plastic, or a shower curtain. This negates any cracks or holes you have in your tub's previous life as a wheelbarrow, and will keep your water from leaking away.

Step 6: Cut Away Excess Plastic

Using a pocket knife (or other instrument of cutting), shear away most of the plastic, until you have perhaps six to eight inches of a skirting left outside of the hole.

Step 7: Carefully Use Dirt to Fill in Around Tub

Lift the plastic up in one hand, and use your hand trowel to scoop dirt under the plastic, to fill in between the hole and your tub. See the second picture for correct hand positioning. We also used some chopped wood to make a redneck frame-up job. Classy, right?

(The wood also keeps the plastic from being jostled about by the dogs, and/or chewed at, and torn out)

Step 8: Let Your Doggies Enjoy!

Not only will you have a remarkable conversational piece, but your dogs will have fresh water to drink from and bathe in! If it's shallow enough, the birds might even use it as a bird bath.

NOTE: We like to let the water hose drip down to keep mosquitoes away, and to counter evaporation in the full sun.

Obviously, this can be experimented with to produce different results - but our Pekingese was thrilled with the final product!

You could throw a couple of drops of chlorine. Low levels are not harmful. Our pool chlorine level is maintain just above that of normal tap water because we let our dogs swim in it. As long as you change out the water like you would a typical water bowl, mosquitoes aren't an issue.